Bribery, ObamaCare Style

Bailouts: Last Friday, the Obama administration quietly expanded an insurance industry bailout program that it publicly insisted never existed. In exchange, Obama wants a big political favor from insurers.

Last week, the administration promised insurers it would use "other sources of funding" to protect their profits "in the unlikely event" that ObamaCare costs more than expected.

The language was buried in a 435-page regulatory filing that only the industry would normally care about. But it caught the eye of the Washington Examiner's Philip Klein on Friday.

The bailout story got legs this week when the Los Angeles Times followed suit, noting that the regulatory change could "potentially make billions of additional taxpayer dollars available to the insurance industry."

Keep in mind that only a few weeks ago, White House officials were denying that any such bailout existed in ObamaCare. The "risk corridor" program at issue, a White House budget spokesman said in March, was merely a "safety valve for consumers and insurers" transitioning to a "brand new market."

It was, the administration promised, there only to protect insurers temporarily, as a way to encourage them to join ObamaCare, and was just like the one used in the Medicare Part D drug benefit program.

Besides, they said, the ObamaCare risk corridor program would be self-financing, with overly profitable insurers paying in so money-losing ones could take out.

But in his latest budget, Obama proposed setting aside $5.5 billion for the program, just in case. The Times makes clear: Obama expects something big in return.

The expanded guarantee comes, the paper says, "as part of an intensive administration effort to hold down premium increases for next year, a top priority for the White House as the rates will be announced ahead of this fall's congressional elections."

In short, Obama is offering the industry virtually unlimited taxpayer bailout money, in hopes that it will return the favor and avoid politically damaging rate hikes, at least until after November's mid-term elections.

Left unsaid in all this is the fact that the only reason such bailouts are needed in the first place is because ObamaCare tries to replace basic market forces that normally govern the insurance industry with a vast array of complex and costly cross subsidies.

Bailouts: Last Friday, the Obama administration quietly expanded an insurance industry bailout program that it publicly insisted never existed. In exchange, Obama wants a big political favor from insurers.

Last week, the administration promised insurers it would use "other sources of funding" to protect their profits "in the unlikely event" that ObamaCare costs more than expected.

The language was buried in a 435-page regulatory filing that only the industry would normally care about. But it caught the eye of the Washington Examiner's Philip Klein on Friday.

The bailout story got legs this week when the Los Angeles Times followed suit, noting that the regulatory change could "potentially make billions of additional taxpayer dollars available to the insurance industry."

Keep in mind that only a few weeks ago, White House officials were denying that any such bailout existed in ObamaCare. The "risk corridor" program at issue, a White House budget spokesman said in March, was merely a "safety valve for consumers and insurers" transitioning to a "brand new market."

It was, the administration promised, there only to protect insurers temporarily, as a way to encourage them to join ObamaCare, and was just like the one used in the Medicare Part D drug benefit program.

Besides, they said, the ObamaCare risk corridor program would be self-financing, with overly profitable insurers paying in so money-losing ones could take out.

But in his latest budget, Obama proposed setting aside $5.5 billion for the program, just in case. The Times makes clear: Obama expects something big in return.

The expanded guarantee comes, the paper says, "as part of an intensive administration effort to hold down premium increases for next year, a top priority for the White House as the rates will be announced ahead of this fall's congressional elections."

In short, Obama is offering the industry virtually unlimited taxpayer bailout money, in hopes that it will return the favor and avoid politically damaging rate hikes, at least until after November's mid-term elections.

Left unsaid in all this is the fact that the only reason such bailouts are needed in the first place is because ObamaCare tries to replace basic market forces that normally govern the insurance industry with a vast array of complex and costly cross subsidies.

See Also

Taxes: Health and Human Services admits it sent nearly a million incorrect tax forms to ObamaCare enrollees. A government that can't even get something simple like this right has no business running health care.The form in question is a new one — Form 1095-A — that goes to anyone who ...

Phony Numbers: The Obama administration says more than 11 million signed up for ObamaCare this year. Should anyone believe this number? Even if it's true, is it a sign of success? The answer to both is a resounding no.In a staged video released on Tuesday, HHS Secretary Sylvia Burwell tells ...

Hypocrisy: If ObamaCare is so great, why do Democrats repeatedly try to hide its more unpleasant features? The latest example is their desperate effort to grant still more exemptions to the law's individual mandate.This week, three House Democrats who helped usher ObamaCare through that chamber ...

Crony Socialism: Among ObamaCare's many bad ideas was the attempt to create an entirely new industry of nonprofit insurance co-ops. It is fast turning into a huge, multibillion-dollar taxpayer boondoggle.Created as an alternative to an outright "public option," the co-ops have received $2.5 billion ...

Spending: President Obama almost sounded like a free-market health care reformer during a recent interview. Too bad he can't even imagine letting the private sector fix things.in an interview published this week on Vox.com, Ezra Klein asks Obama why health care costs so much more in the U.S. than ...

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